


Like Father, Like Son... Like hella!

by sokkattome



Category: The Art of Burning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sokkattome/pseuds/sokkattome
Summary: An essay I actually wrote and submitted in my English II Honors class (taught by Canadian Man) about the theme of gender roles and masculinity as it presents in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe compared toThe Art of Burning by hella1975.
Relationships: snakefarm/validation
Comments: 51
Kudos: 117





	Like Father, Like Son... Like hella!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hella1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hella1975/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Art of Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736617) by [hella1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hella1975/pseuds/hella1975). 



> couldn’t figure out how to share this, so i decided to post it here. i copied and pasted from docs (because i use google docs like a sane human @hella) so if there’s weird formatting, that’s why. enjoy.

Like Father, Like Son… Like hella!

Snake Farm (sokkattome)

Canadian Man

English II

12/19/2020

When old media is made available on popular streaming platforms, they re-enter viewers’ worlds. Television shows and movies from childhood suddenly become the center of all thought: a passionate—and often short-lived—obsession. When  _ The Office _ (American version) was added to Netflix in 2013–eight years after it first aired—the already well-known show’s popularity skyrocketed. Netflix users saw this again when  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ was added in May of this year. Many fans are still going strong, four months later—and like any fandom, there is an abundance of fanfiction for the children’s series. Fanfiction is an outlet for enthusiastic writers of a fandom to build on and warp the world and characters the original creators provide. This spike in popularity saw one writer—“hella1975” AKA “hella”—in particular publishing an ongoing series titled  The Art of Burning : a Zuko-centric fanfiction. Prince Zuko is a main character in the television series, but arguably does not get the screen time his character needs to accurately convey character development: specifically, the process of unlearning his father’s values.  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe features a protagonist—Okonkwo—who obsesses over his father’s values—but rather than following them religiously like Zuko, he is plagued by the fear of stooping to them.

The Art of Burning showcases Zuko’s journey with self-image and the gender roles ingrained in him—the most obvious being his relationship with his sexuality and all its potential implications. Zuko grew up in the Fire Nation—where he is prince (although he was canonically banished at thirteen for speaking out against the dehumanization of Fire Nation soldiers by their generals and the state of his title is a little unclear). Canonically, this nation criminalized homosexuality long ago. Zuko’s abusive—psychologically and physiologically—father raised him to believe a man had to be one thing. To overcome this toxic ideal, Zuko has to recognize the inherent and multitude of flaws prevalent in his country. This is a difficult task for anyone, but it is particularly so when one is fixated on a goal, as Zuko is: find the Avatar and restore his honor, or never return home. The quest for the Avatar--a twelve-year-old boy with the power to end the war the Fire Nation has waged against the rest of the world for a century--brings Zuko all over the world, until he finally finds him in the South Pole with the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko chases the boy and his companions (the two children of the Southern Water Tribe Chief) all over and goes to great lengths to capture him, falling short every time. Diverging from canon,  The Art of Burning has Zuko captured by the Southern Water Tribe warriors (who had departed the South Pole a few years ago to fight the Fire Nation). There, Zuko begins to unlearn all the Fire Nation and his father have instilled in him--until he is captured again by the Earth Kingdom, where he is tortured and starved. 

Things Fall Apart has many parallels to  The Art of Burning  when it comes to the understanding of masculinity and gender roles. Okonkwo is haunted by the fear of turning into his father, who he believes to be a failure; Zuko is terrified to never live up to his father’s standards and become himself—someone he believes to be a failure. Okonkwo views compassion as weak and shows love through aggression; Zuko, too, has learned his lesson on the dangers of empathy. Both men also favor apathy—not to say they don’t have feelings, but that when they do they suppress them before they can become fully realized. The theme of rigid masculinity permeates both  The Art of Burning and  Things Fall Apart , ideated in their main characters, respectively: in their seemingly opposite issues with their fathers, in their aversion to show affection, and in their suppression of feelings entirely.

Zuko and Okonkwo have heavily contrasting views of their fathers--one is ashamed to be related and the other to be disowned. Okonkwo’s world view revolves around his father: everything he does is driven by his insurmountable fear of “be[ing] found to resemble his father.” This obsession causes Okonkwo to embody the perfect example of toxic masculinity: angry, violent, abusive. He hits his wives--even on days designated for peace. He killed his adoptive son--even after being told not to by a village elder. Zuko has an obsession as well: honor. His definition of honor--his  _ father’s _ definition of honor--differs from the common understanding of the word. Rather than honor in justice, there is honor in conquering: honor in the Fire Nation’s imperialism. Zuko believes his father would think him “weak” and “honourless” if he were to be himself. To “earn” back his title and his place by his father’s side, Zuko forces himself to act as his father would expect him to (even outside of the country and therefore his supervision): cruel, relentless, and without mercy. He goes to arguably dishonorable means to get back to his nation--steals several times, kidnaps a prisoner captured by his own nation, etc. Unlike Okonkwo, Zuko is able to find another Father figure in his captor (his  _ first _ captor, the Southern Water Tribe): the chief. However, whatever progress Zuko makes is immediately undone when he is taken by the Earth Kingdom and unlearns trust and compassion. While Zuko and Okonkwo have very different views of their fathers, they are both controlled by a fear inspired by them which causes them to commit (possibly irredeemable) atrocities.

Okonkwo subscribes to an extreme toxic masculinity he modeled to contrast his father as much as possible—to “hate everything that his father Unoka had loved.” Where Unoka was passive, Okonkwo is aggressive; where Unoka is gentle, Okonkwo is violent. Showing affection and kindness is considered a weak and ‘feminine’ trait by society: ideals which penetrate these works of fiction. The idea that men do not love the same way women do causes Okonkwo to hide, disguise, and warp his affections. He even laments that his favorite child, Ezinma, was not born a boy, as she has the “spirit” of one. Okonkwo does love some of his children—namely, Ikemefuna and Ezinma—but he always took care not to show it. Zuko, on the other hand, does not have many people to love: his father burned and banished him, his mother is gone, his sister is just another reason for his father to be disappointed in him, and he has no friends. While he did have a girlfriend in the Fire Nation, before he was banished, he wasn’t ever able to care for her in the way a straight boy could have—their relationship was forced and unnatural to him. His only somewhat meaningful connection (at the beginning of the story, at least) is with his uncle, a well-meaning but naïve man. When he encounters—or rather, is kidnapped—by the Southern Water Tribe (his “enemy”), he finds a family he could be a part of if only he would let himself. Instead, he calls himself “too soft, too weak, too everything Azula [his sister] wasn’t.” (By the time he finally becomes an unofficial part of the tribe, he gets himself kidnapped again.) Zuko often compares himself to his sister, his father’s favorite child. Purportedly, this would prove a discoloration between Zuko’s emotional repression and his standard of masculinity, but this is the exception that proves the rule: his little sister is a better man than him. The unfounded and harmful assumptions of masculinity bar both Okonkwo and Zuko from happiness; instead of finding love and family, they hurt those they care about so they can be alone.

Zuko and Okonkwo view compassion as weak; they consider all emotions, excluding anger, to be weak. Instead of experiencing and working through feelings, they suppress them until they ostensibly disappear (but they tend to find an outlet in anger). When Ezinma is taken by the village’s priestess, Chielo, Okonkwo does not go after her--at least, not at first. Controlled by the possibility that someone will think him weak, Okonwko waits “a reasonable and manly” amount of time to pass before following Chielo. Even then, he goes back and forth between his property and the place he believes Chielo took Ezinma, not willing to be found waiting on his own account. He only stays once he finds his wife--and mother of Ezinma--has made her way to that place: he only stays when he can say he is supporting the emotional woman. Okonkwo holds himself and other men to this standard of apathy. In a discussion about a man from a neighboring village, it is revealed the man--who they all knew--“could not do anything” without telling his first wife. Okonkwo finds this distasteful, as he had thought this man “strong,” but has evidently changed his mind as he learns the man consulted a woman--even if it was his wife. Zuko is less concerned with others--not because he doesn’t judge people, but because he spends much more energy judging himself. While Okonkwo has many complex emotions, Zuko has that and more to suppress: Zuko is gay. Even far from Fire Nation shores, the belief programmed into him--the belief that being gay is effeminate and wrong--dictates his actions. He refuses to acknowledge or address the truth about himself, instead dedicating himself to becoming a stronger warrior and carrying out his father’s orders. When he is with the Southern Water Tribe, the chief confronts Zuko on the matter (a naïve but honest mistake), Zuko shuts down. He doesn’t speak to the chief as Zuko--he speaks to him as the Fire Nation: “with the monotony of practice.” Zuko’s suppression--his  _ repression _ \--is centered around an ideal of masculinity he cannot attain as a gay man; that trait alone excludes him. Admitting his sexuality to himself would be admitting he will never be the son his father wants--and therefore will never regain his “honor” from him. Before joining the Southern Water Tribe, Zuko restricted himself from getting any enjoyment from life as well as feeling any pain. In Zuko’s eyes--in his father’s eyes--“masculinity was synonymous with apathy.” He shields himself from feelings and the reality of life by feigning indifference. When he is captured (the second time) and tortured, he turns to apathy: “he’d rather feel nothing than feel agony.” The only exception to Zuko’s apathy--the only emotion he allows himself to feel--is anger, a trait as familiar as heat in the Fire Nation. Though their experiences differ considerably, both Okonkwo and Zuko respond to them in the same way: with apathy, a trait they believe to embody masculinity.

The theme of gender roles permeates both  Things Fall Apart and  The Art of Burning . Although they are ostensibly very different works, both feature a protagonist chasing an ideal of masculinity no one can realistically maintain. This obsession, driven by their fathers, causes them to repress their emotions in favor of anger. Until they are able to accept themselves as they are and properly work through their emotions, they will always be haunted by the expectations they hold themselves to. 

WORK CITED:

hella1975. “The Art of Burning.” Archive of Our Own, 5 Aug. 2020, archiveofourown.org/works/25736617/chapters/62496421.

Avatar: The Last Airbender. Created by Michael Dante DiMartino, et al., Nickelodeon, 19 July 2008.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.

**Author's Note:**

> i cannot believe i wrote this.


End file.
